People have long been fascinated and entertained by logic-based puzzles. Manipulative puzzles such as the vastly popular Rubik's cube are commercially available and well known in the prior art. Rubik's cube is a mechanical puzzle invented by the Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Emo Rubik in 1974. Is has been estimated that over 100,000,000 Rubik's cubes or imitations have been sold worldwide.
A Rubik's cube is a cubic block with its surface subdivided so that each face consists of nine squares. Each face can be rotated, giving the appearance of an entire slice of the block rotating upon itself. This gives the impression that the cube is made up of 27 smaller cubes (3×3×3). In its original state each side of a Rubik's cube is a different color, but the rotation of each face allows the smaller cubes to be rearranged in many different ways. The challenge is to be able to return the cube to its original state from any position.
The Rubik's cube reached its height of popularity during the early 1980's. Many similar puzzles were released shortly after the Rubik's cube, both from Rubik himself and from other sources, including the Rubik's Revenge, a 4×4×4 version of the Rubik's cube. There are also 2×2×2 and 5×5×5 cubes (known as the Pocket Cube and the Professor's Cube, respectively), and puzzles in other shapes, such as the Pyraminx™, a tetrahedron.
Another logic-based puzzle that is known and is more familiar to the embodiment of the present invention is a 4×4 square grid having fifteen slidable tiles number 1–15 occupying fifteen of the sixteen spaces within the grid. Tiles can be slid sequentially into the empty space in the grid, thereby altering the relative positions of the numbered tiles. The typical solution to such a puzzle is obtained when the tiles are numerically ordered 1–15 reading left-to-right across the columns and then down the rows.
Many other logic-based puzzles exist using recognizable patterns of colors, letters, numbers, and images, and the like to distinguish solutions states form non-solutions states. There remains a need, however, for a manipulative puzzle solving game that provides a variety of puzzles for the player to solve.